Michigan State's Derrick Nix on battle with weight, get into shape: 'I’ve just got to stay disciplined'

AP File PhotoMichigan State's Derrick Nix has been battling weight issues most of his collegiate career.

EAST LANSING — Derrick Nix loves the $5 pepperoni pizza offered by a popular chain. Put that with a sugary two-liter pop, and it’s not only how the Michigan State sophomore center grew into a basketball player at Detroit’s Pershing High School — it was his preferred pre-game meal — but one of the ways he became a doughboy, lower-case “d.”

Fast-forward a few years and the box color has changed, the company is different, but the calorie-packed doughball with sauce, cheese and your favorite topping stays pretty much the same — omnipresent.

“That is hard, to watch somebody eat a large pizza, right in my face, and I’ve got to eat a salad,” Nix said.

There they sit, after every Michigan State home basketball game — thankfully for Nix’s bathroom scale, those are finished for this season — a couple dozen large pies, tempting and taunting the 280-something-pounder to tilt on the wrong side of 290, the side where Tom Izzo bites his tongue and tries not to criticize, then simply can’t help himself, because a pudgy Nix is a lethargic Nix, and a conditioned one. ...

Well, no one is quite sure about the latter, because Nix never has practiced or played a game in optimal shape, although he was getting pretty close last summer and fall, when his weight dipped south of 270 and his game started soaring north of his in-roster competitors for playing time, roommate Garrick Sherman and Adreian Payne.

Then, when Nix didn’t get quite enough early-season playing time, he sulked. And he ate. And he played even less. And he was left home from the Maui Invitational. And he threatened to transfer. And he said he was sorry. And the weight, it just stayed, 287 pounds worth, he said Thursday.

Izzo said he hopes Nix’s nine-point, nine-minute effort in Wednesday’s win against Iowa serves as personal inspiration to keep the weight down and the minutes up.

“It fired me up,” Nix said. “But I can do that. It ain’t like I surprised myself.”

Yet, different people find different motivations, and Nix is nothing if not a riveting study in that truth.

With a big game between Michigan State and Michigan looming Saturday, one might think the in-state players who chose one or the other, after extensive training in basketball from an early age, would have some inborn sense of the series, extending back as far as he can remember.

Late Wednesday, after the Iowa game ended in a 19-point win that put MSU on the cusp of NCAA tournament qualification, Nix and Izzo exchanged texts.

“I told him if I was in shape, the rotation wouldn’t be all screwed up,” Nix said.

Izzo has heard it before, of course. He wants to see more of it, like in the Iowa game, with the 5-for-5 free-throw shooting from one of last year’s premier bricklayers in major-college basketball, or the speedy spin move on the block for a layup. Or, perhaps you prefer Nix’s nifty playmaking and court vision, with his underrated passing skills.

Regardless, that’s what Izzo means when he says that Nix sometimes demonstrates “things that could’ve been,” if the 6-foot-9 center just could maintain his offseason conditioning.

A few days ago, Izzo justifiably expressed concern that Nix’s weight issues could have a long-term impact on his athletic future.

“There are a lot of football guys that never pan out because of the same kind of things,” he said.

Why is it so difficult for someone who plays a running game to keep his weight in check?

Road trips are a big part of the problem, Nix said.

“It’s so hard because we have training table, then day of a game, we have food all day, sit around the hotel,” he said. “It’s kind of hard. It’s hard, like, on the road, to do cardio. It really gets me when I go on the road. When I’m at home, when I’m here, it’s fine.”

Then, there are those post-game meals, usually a selection of sandwiches that go virtually untouched, and a couple dozen pizza boxes that vanish.

“It’s crazy,” Nix said. “I’ve just got to stay disciplined. As long as I stay disciplined, I can lose it again.”

A few games ago, Nix clutched one of the boxes. But it wasn’t big enough for a pizza. He opened it to disclose the mysterious ingredients. He was asked what it was.

“Something you wouldn’t feed a dog,” he said.

Today, instead of the $5 pizzas — the nearest franchise of that chain is a relatively safe eight-minute drive from where he lives — Nix’s dining preference is a Southwest Chicken Salad from McDonalds, 320 calories and nine fat grams without the dressing, or another 100 calories and six grams with it.

“I eat those every day,” he said. “Or I eat those little frozen meals, like Alfredo chicken, or chicken pasta.”

On the opposite side of the floor Saturday, Nix will see Michigan’s 6-8, 240-pound Jordan Morgan, a former high school rival whose prep team never beat Nix’s, but their matchups were highly anticipated. Morgan is averaging 9.4 points, 5.6 rebounds and 24.6 minutes. He is doing everything, as a freshman, that Nix wants to do. He can run, he can jump, and Nix acknowledged that the smaller man is the stronger of the two.

“He’s in great shape,” Nix said. “That’s the shape I want to be in, the shape that he’s in.”